While not 100 percent necessary, it is often helpful to use presses and forms when heating or steaming and bending wood.
It is possible to bend wood by hand and hold it in position until cool. In his book Bows and Arrows of the Native Americans, Jim Hamm is shown holding a hot piece of wood (with potholders) and bending it over his knee until cool. In Cherokee Bows and Arrows, A1 Herrin shows how to straighten wood by bending it in the fork of a tree.
]im Hamm demonstrates his "Jim Dandy" bow straightener to Ron Hardcastle (photo by Paul Brunner).
The Flat Bow depicts husky presses capable of bending wood over 2 inches square. Note the illustration. "A" is a bar 14 to 16 inches long. It is made of either iron or 4-by-4 oak. The blocks on each end of the bar are oak. The stave is bent toward the bar by either a vise or a pair of 9-inch clamps.
If bending wood no thicker than an inch, the press can be more modest. I made a press patterned after The Flat Bow presses. But the bar is only a piece of oak plank. I can successfully steam and bend wood up to an inch thick with this press. I use 4-inch clamps and one clamp is usually enough. Sometimes the bar of the press bends slightly during the process. But it poses no problem.
This is the press I use to remove deflex from sections of the stave's limbs. This is done after the bow is roughed out, but before tillering starts.
This press is handy for reflexing bows and removing deflex from limbs. For reflexing thicker pieces of wood, a huskier press is needed.
This bow was simultaneously reflexed and straightened at the handle by using a two-way press.
Sometimes it is necessary to bend a piece of wood in two directions. For example, when a stave is deflexed in the handle, and also crooked in the handle.
The bowyer will typically be frustrated by such wood. He will steam the deflex out. Then he will steam the wood sideways to straighten it, only to find the deflex has returned.
I licked this problem by building a two-way press. This press is a two-sided trough. Short oak planks were epoxied together. Small blocks of wood are taped into place before the press is used. In this manner, the blocks can be moved later to accommodate different bending needs. The wood is steamed, put into the press, clamped one direction, then clamped the second direction.
1 was pleasantly surprised to find that 95 percent of the time the first clamp stays in the correct position when the second clamp is tightened.
Recurve-bending is also easier with a form, and is discussed fully in the next chapter.
In The Book of Primitive Archery, Jay Massey shows a form that can be used to steam a reflex into an entire limb.
It is important to remember that steaming makes wood soft. If you are going to secure the wood with a damp, the clamp will put a dent in the wood. This is not a problem if the clamp rests on the belly or side of a roughed out bow. Later woodworking will remove dents left by the clamp.
If the damp must be put on the bow's back, you can protect the back with shims. Cut some oak or other tough wood into pieces about 11/2 inches square and about 1/4-inch thick. Put thick leather between the bow and the wooden shim, and secure the clamp onto the shim. In this way, the surface of the bow will not be damaged.
Also remember when you remove wood from steam or boiling water, you have to act fast. If you are going to bend a limb tip into a sharp recurve, you must do it in about 30 seconds or the wood will cool enough to crack as you bend it.
Make preparations to avoid delays. Have your clamps opened to the correct distance, and have any needed shims and leather close at hand.
If steaming a set-back into a handle—or straightening a section of limb slightly—you won't be as rushed. You can take up to 90 seconds or so to finish these tasks.
Straightening a limb from side to side is more easily accomplished with fairly narrow limbs. And steaming a propeller twist straight is probably easier to accomplish with a wider, flatter limb.
Many bowmakers are extremely fastidious about steaming out all propeller twists and sideways curves in the limbs. I would submit that this is simply the fiberglass mentality mentioned earlier.
If we make up a list of the things that will break a wooden bow, being slightly crooked or propellered are about the last on the list. There is a benefit to having the string bisect the middle of the handle when the bow is strung. This is possible even if the bow is somewhat crooked or propellered.
If your main concern is a functional, durable bow, cosmetics in the form of laser-straight lines and micrometered limbs have little value.
World History
